Getting lucky without playing the lottery!

UPDATE: My mother-in-law passed away this afternoon about 5:40. Rest in peace, dear.

This is a repost, complete with previous comments, from almost a year ago exactly.

Picking a nursing home for a loved one is hard work.

After sorting through government ratings, touring affordable - and unaffordable - residences, and asking strangers on every street corner, IT Guy and I finally relied on our own experience.

Neither one of us have personally needed a similar facility, but after my mother fell and suffered severe brain damage several years ago, we placed her in a local Methodist home called Crestview.

IT Guy and I had inquired about availability at Crestview during the course of M-I-L’s hospital stay and rehabilitation. Availability in a good nursing home is just another way of getting lucky, only without buying a lottery ticket.

The day before M-I-L was scheduled to leave rehab, a bed at Crestview opened up, so to speak. Since IT Guy had a meeting, I escorted M-I-L to her new home.

It was lunchtime when we arrived. I asked our escorts if she could see her room before she ate. She was worried and I wanted her to be able to enjoy her meal and start the whole experience off on a good note, without reservations about where she would be sleeping that night.

Of course, they said, as they pushed her down the hall, me faithfully following behind the wheelchair. I’d been down this hall many times, daily, in fact, for a full year.

We turned left in front of the dining hall. I waved at several people I’d known during my Mother’s stay. Not that they would remember me, but I remembered them.

By the time our little parade got halfway down the hall, willies started wiggling up my spine. It was all too familiar. I knew the people who lived in the rest of the rooms in this wing. I’d just waved to some of them.

The CNA kept pushing my M-I-L and I kept following, until there was only one room left.

My mother’s old room.

And that’s where we turned, right into my Mother’s old room. Right up to her old bed. Right across from her old roommate.

The only available bed at Crestview was my mother’s old bed. To me, it was like going home.

Geezerville, Texas

I love hangin’ out at the old folk’s home. There, I’m the youngest. The prettiest. The smartest. And the most continent.

I fit in real well with the residents, probably because they get to do all the stuff I like to do. Puzzles and games. Arts and crafts. Singing, although I’m not very good at that. But then none of them are either. At least I can remember the words…most the time.

They also eat lots of cake and ice cream. I really like that part.

The old-timers get to take lots of naps too. They take ‘em before breakfast, after breakfast, before lunch, after lunch, before dinner, after dinner. During dinner. And before bedtime. The minute an old geezer climbs out of his or her bed, an aide makes it up again. It’s sort of like being on a cruise ship, only without the towel animals.

And without the shuffleboard.

It costs about the same, though.

Life behind the blog

Placing a loved one in a nursing home has to be one of life's harder decisions. That's what IT Guy has been struggling with this holiday.

No, FringeGirl, he's not placing ME in a home. It's his mother. But bib to bib is our destined life cycle, if we're lucky - or unlucky - enough to live that long.

Sorting through someone's life's possessions is a painful yet interesting process. M-I-L didn't throw anything away. Neither did her parents. The ID card at left is from when she managed the Post Exchange at Camp Bowie, Texas, at 22-years of age.

Her father's driver's license is dated 1936 and has the vital statistics hand written in pencil. Licenses back then had two tearaway sections for, apparently, when the driver received a ticket.

The bottom tearaway states "Detaching this stub reduces license to second class." The tearaway in the middle of the license reduces the license to third class.

The section on the back of the license is a Felony Conviction Report and revokes the license altogether. A policeman could see if the driver had priors faster than in today's computer age!

One of my favorite pieces is the Official Headlight Certificate dated 1927. Not only did your headlights have to be in compliance with the law in the State of Texas but the certificate had to be presented to the tax collector when you registered your motor vehicle.

The certificate clearly states on the back, "Do your part to make night driving safer in Texas."


My New Year wishes for you are that your headlights are in compliance and that your driver's license remains long.